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Schlock Mercenary

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Schlock Mercenary
Schlock Mercenary book 1: Under New Management
Author(s)Howard Tayler
Websitehttp://www.schlockmercenary.com/
Current status/scheduleUpdates every day
Launch date2000-06-12 [1]
Genre(s)Science Fiction, Comedy

Schlock Mercenary is a webcomic by Howard Tayler that follows the adventures of a mercenary company aboard a starship in a 31st-century space opera setting. Despite the narrative following a band of military freelancers, it's mostly family-friendly entertainment.

Tayler at CONduit 17 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Schlock Mercenary debuted on June 6, 2000, with amateurish artwork. Over time, Tayler's work improved from bad to, in his words, "marginally less bad."[1] Jean Elmore served as colorist for the strip from February 9, 2003 to the spring of 2004 when she developed a repetitive strain injury from her work.

On March 3, 2003, the comic reached its 1001st strip. Tayler marked the milestone by "re-launching" the comic. With the relaunch, the strip was slightly reoriented for publication, organizing the comic's ongoing story into "books". Each book has a fairly self-contained story, although they are still chronological and connected.[2]

On December 2, 2005, Tayler published the comic's 2000th daily strip[3] since the series' debut. On June 6, 2007, Schlock Mercenary marked seven years of uninterrupted run.

In March 2006, Tayler published Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management, the first book-based collection of Schlock Mercenary comics (ISBN 0-9779074-2-2). This collection features stories printed from March 9, 2003 through August 23, 2003, plus five pages of new material including a foreword by John Ringo, a feature explaining how Sgt. Schlock "got turned on to plasma cannons", bonus art, the author's biography, and architectural deck plans to Tagon's third ship Serial Peacemaker.

In December 2007, Tayler published Schlock Mercenary: The Tub of Happiness. It features stories from the beginning of the webcomic to October, 2001, as well as the bonus story "Baggage Claim," explaining the circumstances around Schlock joining the Toughs. There are numerous pieces of fan art throughout the book, as well as early concept art drawn by Tayler and notes to the reader from both Tayler and his wife, talking about the characters and Tayler's early cartooning efforts.

Publication

File:Schlock Mercenary book 2 - The Blackness Between.jpeg
Schlock Mercenary book II: The Blackness Between.

Collections of Schlock Mercenary strips are published in book form by "The Tayler Corporation", one way of saying it is self-published. Curiously, the first published collection, Under New Management does not start at the beginning of the archive. Instead, Book I begins at the 1001st strip, when the strip was relaunched. The first 1,000 strips are intended to be published in two 200+ page volumes: the first in late 2007, the second in 2008. Announced book titles are as follows:[4][5][6]

  • Book 1: The Tub of Happiness (ISBN 978-0-9779074-0-3)
  • Book 2: The Teraport Wars
  • Book 3: Under New Management (ISBN 0-9779074-2-2)
  • Book 4: The Blackness Between (ISBN 0-9779074-3-0)
  • Book 5: Out From Under New Management
  • Book 6: Mad Science Means Never Having To Ask "What's The Worst Thing That Could Happen?"
  • Book 7: Emperor Pius Dei
  • Book 8: The Sharp End of the Stick
  • Book 9: The Body Politic
  • Book 10: I'd better Hurry Up And Name This Thing Or People Will Start To Suspect That I Make This Crap Up On The Run (upcoming, tentatively named[7])

The books were renumbered to allow for the release of The Tub of Happiness, which Tayler did not originally intend, in 2007. Originally, they used Roman numerals, with Under New Management as the first book.[8]

Story

Many plotlines revolve around the jobs Kaff Tagon and his mercenary crew have accepted, preferably involving as much brawn as necessary and as little brain as possible (although resident mad scientist Kevyn Andreyasn can pick up the slack if need be). Other times, the crew is swept up in a galaxy- or universe-spanning conflict.

Cast

Main article: Schlock Mercenary characters

The story primarily centers on Captain Kaff Tagon and his mercenary crew, Tagon's Toughs. Notable members of the crew include Munitions Commander and resident mad scientist Kevyn Andreyasn, title character Sergeant Schlock, who is an amorphous blob, Petey, a former Artificial Intelligence and now FleetMind and pseudo-God, and the wry AI and former boyband, Ennesby.

Universe

In the distant future of Schlock Mercenary's setting, many changes have faced Terran society. Faster-than-light travel has been attained, alien races have been contacted, and technology has undergone radical improvements.

Alien species have varied from fairly humanoid to almost unrecognizable. There have been eight-limbed Gatekeepers, two-bodied Uklakk, carbosilicate amorphs with no easily definable limbs or organs, and the unknowable Paan'uri, beings made of dark matter.

The number of sapient species descended from terran stock has increased as Earth's genetic engineers refined their craft. Enhanced chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and two species of sentient elephant now have citizenship. Genetic enhancement of the human population has resulted in the purple-skinned photosynthetic "Purps", along with more general improvements to the population.

Technology

Like most science fiction stories, technology forms a large part of Schlock Mercenary's storytelling framework. Several story arcs revolve around the political conflict surrounding rapid technological change. When a particularly complex or interesting new system is introduced to the comic, its in-comic explanation is supplemented with a footnote.

Travel between the stars is accomplished through the use of "wormgates", large wormhole generators controlled by the enigmatic F'sherl-Ganni Gatekeepers. Within the storyline of the comic, wormgates are largely supplanted by the "teraport", a device that allows for near-instant travel between any two points—as long as neither point is within range of an interdicting device. In that case, the teraporting object is destroyed.

The F'sherl-Ganni also constructed many buuthandi, Schlock Mercenary's take on a Dyson sphere. A buuthandi is a balloon of solar-sail material around a star. Light pressure and solar wind offset the star's gravitation to keep the balloon inflated, while habitats and maintenance facilities dangling from the inner side act as ballast to keep the sails in check. Despite their tremendous surface area, a buuthandi provides a disproportionally small amount livable habit.[9] "Control cables, millions of square kilometers of slack sail material, and some very clever engineering allow the 'balloon' to compensate for (and in some cases mitigate) the mood swings of the contained star."[10] In the Schlock Mercenary universe, a buuthandi is about 300 million kilometers in diameter.[11]

Medical technology is based on nanotechnology or artificial replacements for damaged body parts. One important item that is featured in the comic is the "magic cryo-kit", an illegal device that has the capability to rebuild an entire body as long as the brain is intact. In the strip this has always been shown as "from the head down" but presumably nothing more than the brain is actually necessary. It appears that conventional, legal medical technology is also capable of full-body regeneration, though at a much slower pace and dependent on your HMO insurance options. The Toughs employ various technologies to protect survival of heads until their owners can be regenerated. An example of this technology is the comedically ubiquitous "head-in-a-jar", which permits a character to interact in a storyline despite an otherwise-fatal injury. Another is the "nanny-bag", which maintains the severed head of an otherwise mortally-wounded teammate for an unknown length of time. (Evidence as to the duration of a nanny-bag's preservation varies—the head of Kevyn Andreyasn was sustained for several weeks, whereas in a past storyline his companions worried about his head going "gamey" after less than an hour. Though the latter may have simply been Sergeant Schlock's opinion.)

In addition to medical benefits, nanotechnology gives the ability to "boost" soldiers to high levels of physical performance. Minor enhancements are legal, but the more extreme military modifications are highly regulated. The most significant examples of soldier-boosting within the strip are the mercenary grunt Nick[12] and the bounty hunter Doythaban,[13][14] along with the extreme boost of Kevyn.[15]

Computer hardware has progressed to the point where true, strong artificial intelligence is common, and several artificial intelligences have been characters in the story.

Gravity has been tamed and is now employed in propulsion, weapons, and shielding against weapons though the degree of control is smaller with a smaller array of projectors. For example the Battleplate Tunguska was able to manipulate not only individual limbs but individual digits of crew on board the Serial Peacemaker[2] while the much smaller ship can only create nodes of gravity in a few points on the ship and without the same level of control. Other forms of weaponry have improved as well, and a mercenary's arsenal can include railguns, lasers, non-lethal nanomotive "goober" rounds, and plasma cannons. Old-fashioned bullet-firing firearms are still in use as they continue to be effective against unprotected targets and are less likely to rupture a hull than a plasma bolt.

Energy is a resource literally too cheap to meter. Anything that cannot be powered by miniaturized fusion reactors (which, in the 31st century, are so advanced they can operate solely on atmospheric gases[3]), is easily fueled by massively powerful neutronium annihilator "annie" plants. Annie plants unleash massive amounts of power by converting mass to gravitic energy, which can be used directly to power gravitic unishields, gravitic weapons, and shipboard artificial gravity or to generate other forms of energy. Gravitic weapons are both common and well developed due to their dual purpose—not only are they potent weapons, they can compress matter into neutronium which can then fuel an annie plant.

These devices and more are built using fabrication technology, or "fabbers". While rare and expensive, possession of one of these portable factories and the appropriate designs allows for the cheap mass-production of any physical item.[16] Several of the mercenaries are trained in fabber design, allowing the company to cheaply produce and repair their own gear.

Schlocktoberfest

An annual storyline that occurs during the month of October. The story arc always starts out typically, but soon develops a dark tone, usually involving gruesome events and often character death, before resolving itself at the end of the month. It is considered Schlock Mercenary's version of Halloween stories.

The Chupaqueso

The chupaqueso is a favorite food of Tagon's Toughs. The chupaqueso vending machine is the favored alternative to the mess hall for most of the mercenary crew. For those of us stuck in the present, though, there is a simple recipe for the chupaqueso lifted directly from Schlock Mercenary.[17]

You will need a good teflon skillet, a fairly sharp teflon spatula, some sharp cheddar, some fresh parmesan, and some Monterey Jack cheese.
1. Grate about a half-cup of cheddar and a half-cup of jack.
2. Heat the skillet, and spread the cheddar evenly in the pan. You should have an eight-inch diameter circle of grated cheese, with a little bit of pan showing through here and there.
3. As the pan gets hotter the cheese will obviously melt. Then it will toast, and you'll get cheese-grease floating on top of melted cheddar, itself on top of a layer of crusty toasted cheddar.
4. Start lifting around the edges with the spatula. You'll soon reach a point (you'll know, trust me) when the structural integrity of the crusty-toasty cheese allows you to flip the whole thing over.
5. (Speaking of "over," this is often the point where you'll get frustrated and decide to start over.)
6. After toasting side two for a moment, flip it again so the "smooth" side is down, and the recently toasted side is up.
7. You now have a cheese shell sizzling in a puddle of cheese grease. It's still flexible, but much longer and it won't be, so you'll have to work fast. Add the Jack cheese and a sprinkle of parmesan, and then tri-fold the cheddar-shell around it.
8. Slide it out of the pan onto your plate. It's called a "chupaqueso" either because you can suck (chupa) the cheese (queso) out of the middle as you crunch away, or because this cheese (queso) thing you made sucks (chupa).
For added flavor you might try adding cooked-and-crumbled bacon with the jack and parmesan. In this case you'll end up with a chupaqueso con tocino, or, as it's often pronounced in my house, "chupaqueso con SWEET TRADER OF PORK BELLIES THERE'S BACON IN THIS THING chomp chomp AAARGH I BURNED MY MOUTH slurp gulp chomp."
For the record, it's much easier to make a chupaqueso by sliding your credit card into a Popso 2250 Autovend. Officially licensed Tacobufa Chupaquesos are seamless, oblong, cheese-crust shells around a patented six-cheese blend. For just a little more money the Bufador Mealy-Dealy gets you a drink and a large order of Monosfritos (made with freshly-picked monos, or so I've been told).
[EDITOR'S NOTE: "Monos" is Spanish for "monkeys." "Monosfritos" is Spanish for "fried monkeys."]

Note: Chupaquesos can be made using any combination of cheeses, not just those listed above. The more the better. The cheese used for the "shell" should always be shredded or grated, however. The key to said shell is thickness. Make sure when spreading your cheese, you don't just cover the pan. Thickness is the key to keeping it together when you flip it.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates is a popular handbook in the Schlock Mercenary universe. The book's rules (of which there are more than seven) are often quoted by Tagon, as well as other characters. The following is an overview of the book, as penned by Howard Tayler on November 21 2002 in the notes section of the comic:

In the waning years of the 20th century a popular self-help book for businessmen, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, was lampooned on-stage by an improvisational comedy troupe which only four years later was completely defunct, giving rise to speculation that perhaps those in charge should have been reading the book more carefully rather than lampooning it.
Their sketch, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Pirates, went completely unnoticed for several centuries, until the day an archeobibliologist named Joel happened across the script in the Gates Memorial Archive Of Stupid Things From Ye Olde Internet. Our story would have ended there, except that Joel's younger brother Linc was in prison for privateering, and it occurred Joel that perhaps his wanna-be pirate brother would get a kick out of reading it.
Unfortunately, Linc realized as he chuckled at the script ("Bury the hatchet! Hah!") that he was in prison because he was NOT an effective person, and was an even less effective pirate. So he began to write.
Most books written in prison do not tend to sell well, but this one did. Eventually, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates was translated from Galstandard West into the other four Galastandard languages (East, Eight, Brown, and Peroxide), and became a handbook not only for pirates, smugglers, and privateers, but also for CEOs, defense attorneys, and tenured professors. The fact that there are more than seven habits, as well as dozens of 'rules,' may confuse some readers, though, so be warned. And remember Rule 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.

The following is a list of rules found in Schlock Mercenary. The rules are ordered by rule number. The date given after each rule is the date on which the rule was given in the strip. If there are other relevant notes about the rule, they will be included in the reference.

1. Pillage, then burn. (2002-02-07, 2003-03-08, 2004-04-04, 2004-07-22)
4. Close air support covereth a multitude of sins. (2008-04-14)
6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it. (2005-03-13)
8. Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it's on the far side of the airlock. (2002-11-21)
9. Never turn your back on an enemy. (2003-03-08)
11. Everything is air-droppable at least once. (2008-04-15)
12. A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head. (2002-11-21…notes section)
13. Do unto others. (2003-03-08)
16. Your name is in the mouth of others: be sure it has teeth. (2002-11-21)
21. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he's lucky just to be alive, and he'll figure out how to catch another one for you to take tomorrow. (2004-04-04)
27. Don't be afraid to be the first to resort to violence. (2003-03-08)
29. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less. (2003-03-08, 2003-09-29)
30. A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go. (2003-03-08)
31. Only cheaters prosper. (2003-05-11)
34. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun. (2004-02-29, 2007-09-22)
35. That which does not kill you has made a tactical error. (T-shirt sold by author)
36. When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support. (2003-10-02)
37. There is no "overkill". There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload." (2004-02-23, 2004-04-06, 2004-06-23…partial, 2006-10-09…partial)

Running Gags

Xenomorphs (of Alien fame) appear throughout the comic in the background of scenes featuring laboratories.

The TARDIS from Doctor Who makes cameos throughout the series.

Archaeobibliology

Archaeobibliology is a term coined by Tayler. It is a portmanteau of the terms archaeology and bibliography and entails the study of human (or, in the case of the evidence of multiple intelligences in the universe, sophont) cultures through the scholarly study of that culture's writings, notably in the form of books. The term was used by Mr. Tayler in relation to a (fictional) book entitled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates which, in turn, is a parody of the book entitled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Criticism and honors

Wikinews has related news:

The Schlock Mercenary book publication was covered in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, which described it as "inventive and humorous."[18] The comic tied for outstanding science fiction comic in the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards[19] in 2004, and was again nominated for the same award in 2005[20] and 2007.[21] The strip won for Best Cameo in the 2001 awards.[22] Taylor has also written an acclaimed article on Intelligent Design.[4]

References

  1. ^ Schlock Mercenary archives - Monday, June 12, 2000
  2. ^ Schlock Mercenary: The Archive Synopsizer
  3. ^ http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=004490 Howard Tayler interviewed at The Pulse
  4. ^ Tayler, Howard. "The Schlock Mercenary Archive Synopsizer". Retrieved 2006-09-13.
  5. ^ Tayler, Howard. "Blógünder Schlock: Sketch Editions will hit the mail tomorrow". Retrieved 2006-06-25.
  6. ^ Tayler, Howard. "Blógünder Schlock: Some "Director's Commentary"". Retrieved 2007-05-20.
  7. ^ Tayler, Howard. "Howard Tayler, Nightstar Zoo discussion forum". Retrieved 2007-09-13.
  8. ^ Tayler, Howard. "The Great Schlock Mercenary Ret-Con". Retrieved 2007-09-13.
  9. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020421.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
  10. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020309.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
  11. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20010707.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
  12. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20011105.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 30 April 2007
  13. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20021117.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 30 April 2007.
  14. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20010309.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 30 April 2007.
  15. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20070429.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 30 April 2007.
  16. ^ http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20040425.html Schlock Mercenary. Howard Tayler. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
  17. ^ Tayler, Howard (2003-09-06). "Your Daily Schlock Fix for Saturday, September 6, 2003". Schlock Mercenary. Retrieved 2006-08-28.
  18. ^ Review in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, http://www.analogsf.com/0611/reflib_11.shtml
  19. ^ http://www.ccawards.com/2004.htm Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards. "The 2004 Cartoonist's Choice Awards". Retrieved 5 February 2007.
  20. ^ The 2005 Cartoonist's Choice Awards
  21. ^ The 2007 Cartoonist's Choice Awards
  22. ^ The 2001 Cartoonist's Choice Awards

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Schlock Mercenary.
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